第 60 页

The next morning, by the time the landau sent by Sami Pasha (with Coachman Zekeriya driving in his smartest uniform) had brought Commander Kâmil back to the State Hall Square, most people had understood that the shells from the night before had been fired to announce Mingheria’s independence to the world. When Commander Kâmil—a native son of the island and bringer of its newfound independence—stepped out of the armored landau, the garrison’s brass band began to play what they knew best: the “Hamidiye March,” which had been composed in honor of Abdul Hamid. Gendarmes and soldiers from the Quarantine Regiment were standing at attention at the entrance to the State Hall.

“We need a new national anthem composed by a Mingherian!” Sami Pasha remarked when they were alone in his office.

He inspected the Major’s bandaged arm, which was in a sling, and his uniform, which looked austere and all the more majestic now that he had removed his medals and badges.

“They’re all here now … You must sit at the head of the table. But I should walk in first!”

“Let us both go in together. There is no need for ceremony.”

With these words, Commander Kâmil followed Sami Pasha into the large meeting hall next door. Already sitting in the chairs around the main table were some prominent quarantine officials, several members of the Quarantine Committee, neighborhood representatives, heads of various municipal departments, Doctor Nuri, Doctor Nikos, and a few other doctors. They were all sitting as far apart as possible.

“We would have liked to invite more people to this meeting … But it is not possible,” said Sami Pasha. “Please do not cough in each other’s direction. Everything we have done so far has been to stop the outbreak, save Mingherian lives, and secure our survival. As you all know, we have only taken this step because we had no choice but to declare independence.”

As Sami Pasha continued to talk, it became clear to all assembled that they were about to be faced with the onerous task of drawing up or perhaps approving a constitution for the new sovereign state of Mingheria. Two clerks sat at the edge of the table, ready to transcribe the articles of the constitution as they were read out.

“One: The Mingherian people live on the island of Mingheria, in the state of Mingheria,” Sami Pasha began. “Two: Mingheria belongs to the Mingherians. Three: The free and sovereign state of Mingheria is governed by the Republic of Mingheria on behalf of the Mingherian people. The government rules in the name of the Mingherian people. Four: The people of Mingheria are governed under the rule of law, which shall apply to them all. A detailed constitution will be drafted. All Mingherian citizens are equal. Five: The Mingherian people shall have full jurisdiction on all decisions pertaining to court affairs, property deeds, the official registry, taxation, the military, customs regulations, postal services, port access, agriculture, trade, and any other matters, and unless otherwise indicated, and until alternative provisions are announced, the old Ottoman regime’s records, its banknotes and coins, and its ranks, hierarchies, and honors shall remain in effect.” Once these first five articles had been written down, and he’d had the document signed by what he had now begun to call the “parliament”—those forty people who were gathered in the room, a vast majority of whom were Muslims rather than Greeks—Sami Pasha turned to the subject of the composition of the new government and other organizational matters.

The Chief of Charitable Trusts was to become the Minister for Charitable Trusts; Quarantine Master Doctor Nikos would be the new Minister for Public Health (and, as an exceptional measure, Doctor Nuri would be made the new government’s Quarantine Minister); the Head of Customs would be appointed Customs Minister, and the chief of the gendarmes would become the new Minister for Internal Affairs. By this logic, nobody in the State Hall—henceforth to be called the Ministerial Headquarters—would even have to move offices. In any case, what mattered most was to get things done, and make sure quarantine regulations were implemented properly. Titles were not that important. From now on the island would decide for itself.

By the end of this long speech, everyone had understood that Sami Pasha saw himself as the “Chief Minister” of this new regime. The Pasha did not spend any more time on titles and positions; it hadn’t even been two days since the Major had stood on that balcony and waved the flag of Mingheria in front of the people. He decided he should say something to forestall any overt objections from those who were displeased with the thoroughly sensible decision to declare independence and break away from Istanbul and Ottoman rule.

“As you all know, we are living through extraordinary times,” said Sami Pasha, preparing to bring his speech to a close. “The great people of Mingheria are battling the plague in a bid to preserve their very existence. While we have supervised this battle, we have also become unwitting spectators to the Mingherian people’s entrance into the realm of civilized nations. Commander Kâmil has been our leader throughout this struggle. I propose that he is elevated to the rank of General, and given the title of Pasha, and suggest that we take a vote. The motion is passed. I now nominate Commander Kâmil Pasha for the position of president of the Republic of Mingheria. Those who agree please raise your hands. Commander Kâmil Pasha has been chosen as the first president of Mingheria. The ruling shall be announced this evening with twenty-five cannon blasts.”

Everyone looked at the Commander.

“I would like to thank this distinguished parliament, which represents the will of the Mingherian people!” said Commander Kâmil. He stood up to dispense a series of elaborate bows, though he kept smiling throughout. “I too would like to propose an article for our constitution, and one that should be included right at the start: ‘The language of Mingheria is Mingherian, which is the native language of the island of Mingheria and of the Mingherian people! Turkish and Greek shall temporarily be the official languages of the state.’”

There was a moment of silence. The Major noticed that Sami Pasha looked displeased.

The Greek doctor Tassos clapped and said, “Bravo!”

As Greek was not an official language of the Ottoman Empire, the inclusion of this clause in the Mingherian constitution would certainly help to secure support for the new sovereign state among the island’s Greek population. Until that moment everyone in the meeting had felt as if they were living in a scene from a fairy tale or a dream, but now matters had suddenly taken a more calculated turn, entering the domain of what we might perhaps call Realpolitik. At any rate it seemed likely that Greek too, like Turkish, would eventually be pushed aside to enable the Mingherian language to develop faster. This nationalistic, linguistic vision of Mingherian as the sole language of the island seemed a little too fantastical to the group who had gathered that day to solemnly deal with quarantine issues, so they did not take it too seriously. As for the Muslims in the delegation, the only thing that bothered them was that Greek had been made an official language too.

Commander Kâmil could sense their irritation. “For hundreds of years, we have lived as brothers on this beautiful island,” he said. “It follows that the Quarantine Authority and the state must behave like a fair-minded father who maintains an equal distance from all his children. The first thing we must do if we wish to defeat this plague is to treat each other like brothers.”

Commander Kâmil fell silent for a moment, as if to make sure his audience understood they were about to hear words they would never forget. “I am a Mingherian!” he said. “I am proud of being Mingherian—some might say excessively so. I regard myself as an honored and equal member of the international brotherhood of nations, and for that I feel immensely fortunate. But I yearn, too, for the international brotherhood of nations to recognize the magnificence of my Mingheria, of my island, and of my language. When my son is born, he will speak Mingherian at home, just like everyone else on this island. We must take these measures now so that when our children grow up and go to school, they will not feel ashamed of the words they speak at home and forget they ever learned them, and so that this plague may not destroy our Mingherian nation while the world watches on.”

To this day, these are words that are fondly remembered—and tearfully recited—by every Mingherian citizen and anyone who has gone to school on the island. Most of the island’s population will take enormous and rather joyful pride in proclaiming “I am a Mingherian!”—especially when they come across each other abroad. But even the slightest questioning of the obvious contradictions contained within this speech is strictly forbidden; one is simply not allowed to ask why the Turkish and the Greek and even the Italian and Arabic that our ancestors have spoken for hundreds of years should be considered inferior to the Mingherian language, especially if we were all supposed to be brothers. In 1901, only one in five children born on the island spoke Mingherian at home; neither could it be said that most of them grew up speaking Greek or Turkish. In any event, Commander Kâmil’s improvised yet deeply poetic speech was unfortunately cut short when one of the municipal clerks who had been standing in the room suddenly slumped onto a chair and, unable to conceal his agony, begun to shiver and moan with the familiar, excruciating symptoms of plague fever.

CHAPTER 55

Having immediately put in place the requisite arrangements for his new role as Chief Minister, and quickly adjusted his manner and rhetoric accordingly, Sami Pasha got to work that same afternoon even as discussions over the new constitution continued in the large meeting room next door.

He decided first of all that the seven Golden Agers whom the Quarantine Regiment had arrested after a second confrontation with the lodge the night before should now be locked up in the Castle prison, with another group twice that size put into the Castle’s isolation facility. Meanwhile the sheikh of another small sect—a man nicknamed Curly after the corkscrew curls in his hair and beard—had reportedly been heard claiming that “you can’t be a true Muslim if you don’t go to mosque, and using the plague as an excuse to close down mosques is a heartless affront to Islamic sensibilities,” so Sami Pasha had him taken into custody too until he came to his senses. When Curly began to show signs of remorse, the Pasha let him go without resorting to the Castle dungeons. In preparation for the trial of Ramiz and his coconspirators, Sami Pasha also authorized a series of raids on several homes in the neighborhoods of Taşçılar and Kadirler, but not in Germe, where the targets would have been too close to the location of the Halifiye lodge.

Sami Pasha was paying particular attention to relations with the Halifiye lodge. He did not feel there was any fundamental disagreement with the lodge, and he wanted to make sure his actions were not misconstrued. It was a good thing Ramiz hadn’t died when he had been wounded in the raid. Not only would this keep the Commander angry and alert, they would also be able to use Ramiz as leverage against Sheikh Hamdullah. The Halifiye lodge had been left rattled and dispirited by the news that their sheikh’s brother had ended up injured and imprisoned after leading a bloody ambush that had cost many people their lives. Chief Minister Sami Pasha couldn’t even find out which building and which room Sheikh Hamdullah had withdrawn to in contemplation. He did not consult with the Commander on how they should approach the disciples of the Halifiye sect. But he did send orders for Ramiz and his men to be tried and sentenced as soon as possible, and told the Commander what he had done.

“The state of Mingheria must be fair and just!” Commander Kâmil replied.

The former governor and new Chief Minister Sami Pasha soon worked out which matters were worth bringing to the Commander’s attention, and how best to present them. The Commander was not too interested in administrative details around the roles of government clerks and employees, nor in questions of bureaucratic protocol. On the other hand he was quick to grasp the intricacies of topics like departmental budgets, money, government salaries, troop numbers, and how to use the garrison’s Arab division to maintain law and order, and closely followed every development on these various fronts. There were also a number of issues in which he was more personally invested, and he would regularly bring these up for the government to resolve.

One of these related to a new series of postage stamps to mark the foundation of the state of Mingheria. The Commander had given Post Minister Dimitris Effendi direct orders in this regard. But when the minister told him that there were no printers on the island, or even in Smyrna or Thessaloniki, who were worthy of such a task, and that the stamps would have to be ordered from Paris, the Commander was not pleased. He insisted that the minister find some technical solution using whatever resources were available on the island. If the printers had all fled because of the plague, then the Minister for Internal Affairs should be told to find them … Sami Pasha quickly realized that the President’s main concern was to see his own likeness and the landscapes of Mingheria reproduced on these postage stamps.

Another matter the Commander personally looked into was the distribution of gifts—similar to the rewards newly enthroned sultans would dispense to the Empire’s military and bureaucratic cadres—among the members of Mingheria’s government and parliament. He knew that there was very little money left in the coffers of the State Hall—that is to say, the new state treasury. So he came up with a creative solution to their predicament. All officials who supported him would be issued with a signed document certifying that they had been gifted a sizable plot of land on the island, and that this land was exempt from any tax on agricultural production. Today, one hundred and sixteen years later, anyone wishing to confirm the validity of these gift “deeds” and tax exemptions with Mingheria’s land registry must first submit a detailed court application.

The blank shells fired late that afternoon to announce the Commander’s presidency of the Mingherian state were greeted more warmly this time. The number of deaths was not falling, and finding food was becoming more difficult, but the people of Arkaz were fond of their young, daring commander who had organized the Telegraph Raid and married the girl he’d fallen in love with on the island. As it would have been fanciful to even think of organizing another official ceremony just three days after the deadly battle in the State Hall, it was decided to print posters instead, similar to the first quarantine announcements, and as soon as the last shell was fired, these signs were hung up on every street in Arkaz to declare that Commander Kâmil Pasha had been proclaimed president of the free and sovereign Republic of Mingheria, and that everyone must respect quarantine regulations and obey the instructions of the island’s new government.