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CHAPTER 70

Every time they heard the wheels of these corpse carts rattling through the city streets at night, their drivers muttering obscenities (sometimes in Mingherian) as they went by, Princess Pakize and Doctor Nuri, like many others in Arkaz, would despair of ever finding a way out of the quagmire they were in, and lie in bed with their arms wrapped around each other in fear. (Two days ago the carts had collected a corpse from the Ministerial Headquarters too.) After the hanging of Sami Pasha, followed almost immediately by that of Pharmacist Nikiforos, the likelihood of being killed for political reasons suddenly seemed greater than that of dying from the plague (especially for Doctor Nuri, even though he kept telling his wife the opposite).

On the sixteenth of August 1901—a rainy, windy Friday—fifty-one people died. Princess Pakize was writing her sister a letter when there was a knock on the door, and, thinking it must be the janitor or the parlormaid that the new government had assigned to their service, she did not rise from her writing desk when her husband went to answer. But when she heard the sounds of a whispered conversation taking place at the door, she got up and moved closer.

“They’re calling me as a witness!” said Doctor Nuri, looking abashed. “I am to go downstairs and give a statement to the prosecutor.”

Doctor Nuri then explained that there had been various accusations put forward against some of the soldiers of the Quarantine Regiment, including blackmail and willfully sending healthy people into isolation. There had allegedly been more serious crimes too, such as the rape and abduction of women, unlawful expropriations, and murder, but the Doctor and Prince Consort had been called as a witness on one specific incident only. One of the accused soldiers had claimed that the order to evacuate a particular house had come from Doctor Nuri. Now Doctor Nuri had been called upon to defend his actions—no longer in the guise of a quarantine doctor, but only as a friend of the Mingherian nation.

“Of course you must go and give your statement, but please do not say anything that might antagonize these delinquents. It would be all too easy for them to harm you. I beg you, please do not keep me waiting here for the sake of lecturing these people on the importance of science, medicine, and quarantine when they have no interest in hearing it, nor any wish to learn. Know that if you are delayed, you will make me the most miserable woman in the world.”

“To cause you misery … I cannot even imagine it, my lady!” said Doctor Nuri. His admiration for his wife’s wit as they debated the latest turn of events, and the enthusiasm with which she wrote to her sister, grew with each passing day. “I will absolutely not be delayed!”

But Doctor Nuri did not return that day. At dusk, Princess Pakize went to sit at her desk, but found she couldn’t write a single word. An arrow cursed with a mixture of curiosity, pain, and dread had lodged itself into the gap between her heart and her lungs, and she couldn’t breathe. Her attention was so fixed on the noises around her that she could hear every footstep, every shout, and even the softest creaks echoing between the walls of the Ministerial Headquarters, yet there seemed to be no trace of the intimately familiar sound of her husband’s shoes. By nightfall, tears had begun to fall from her eyes onto the piece of paper in front of her.

Convinced that if she stood up from her desk before her husband returned, her husband would never return, Princess Pakize sat there until midnight, doing nothing at all.

She fell asleep for a while with her head resting on the table, but she could tell she would not be able to rest until Doctor Nuri was back at her side, safe and well. Just before morning prayers—the time when all the recent executions had been carried out—she opened the door and stepped outside. As usual, there was someone guarding the door, a soldier from Damascus who did not speak any Turkish. He had fallen asleep in his chair; he woke with a start and pointed his rifle at Princess Pakize, looking flustered. Princess Pakize went back inside and locked the door, then sat at her desk, petrified, until the day had properly dawned.

Finally she went to bed, having managed to convince herself that no gallows had been erected in the State Hall Square, for if they had been, that sinister crow would have come and perched at her window by now.

The next day brought more waiting, an agony of interrupted sleep, tears, and nightmares. Whether she was dozing at her desk or in bed, Princess Pakize often saw Doctor Nuri in her dreams. In one dreamlike fantasy, her husband was sitting on the prow of the Aziziye on his way to China while she awaited his return by her father’s side in Istanbul.

But even as the sleepless nights, the nightmares, and the weeping continued, still her husband did not return. During this time Princess Pakize attempted several times to leave the guesthouse and make her way to Sami Pasha’s old office. She screamed and railed at the guards loud enough for her voice to be heard all over the Ministerial Headquarters. Thankfully the inauspicious crow was nowhere to be seen.

When a clerk came to the door five days after her husband had left, and informed her that she was expected at the Chief Minister’s office in an hour, she calmed herself by reasoning that this must mean her husband was still alive. Given that she was about to go into a meeting with people who had used religion to take over the state, she wore the most modest outfit she could muster, put a shawl around her neck that covered her all the way up to her chin, and wrapped a scarf around her head too.

The janitor and parlormaid who had been bringing her a little bread, walnuts, salted fish, and dried figs every day came along too, acting as her “chaperones.” The Chief Minister’s office, on the same floor as the guesthouse, had previously been Sami Pasha’s office. Princess Pakize had scarcely had a moment to spare a sorrowful thought for the late Sami Pasha when Chief Minister Nimetullah stood up from the old governor’s chair and gestured at a large sofa nearby, but Princess Pakize refused to sit. She kept her distance, glaring at everyone. There was also a pair of young clerks sitting in a corner of the room.

The Chief Minister began to speak, telling Princess Pakize that she was the Mingherian state’s foremost guest of honor, and that the whole island was immensely proud of the fact that the only royal princess in history to ever leave Istanbul had come here to Mingheria on her first trip. Mingherians were “especially” fond of the Princess and of her unjustly deposed father, former sultan Murad V, because of the persecution they had suffered at the hands of the tyrant Abdul Hamid. But regrettably the island’s view of the Princess’s husband was not quite so positive. For the cruel sultan had done to her what he had already done to her sisters before, separating her from her father and arranging for her to marry one of his own loyal officials whom he could rely on to spy for him too. Under the pretext of enforcing quarantine rules, the Doctor and Prince Consort had sowed discord upon the island and pitted the army against their people. He was in court right now, about to be sentenced.

Princess Pakize shivered.

But, the Chief Minister indicated, there might be a solution: at this lonely and difficult time, the Mingherian state had no desire for a new confrontation with Abdul Hamid. Accordingly, the government and everyone else who loved this island had been contemplating a plan that was sure to bring all disagreements to an amicable conclusion, cause the international community to take an interest in the island, and even to protect it in some measure. If Princess Pakize were to accept this proposal, she would be doing the people of Mingheria a great service in their time of need.

“If the contribution expected of me lies within my capabilities, then I shall not hesitate to do whatever I can to help this island.”

“Your day-to-day life in the safety of your guesthouse room will remain unaltered. You may still write letters all day, if you wish. Indeed, his Excellency the Prince will be returned to the guesthouse as soon as the photograph is taken—should you deem it appropriate, of course.”

Nimetullah Effendi proceeded to outline the solution they had come up with. If the Princess agreed, the plan was to arrange a marriage of convenience between her and Sheikh Hamdullah, and take a photograph of them together. The purpose of this scheme was to show the world that the daughter of the previous Ottoman sultan and caliph of Islam was marrying into the Mingherian state. A marriage between the Princess and His Holiness the Sheikh, president of the Mingherian state, was bound to help make their new country much better known, especially if one considered the spread of Islam in the world, the institution of the caliphate, and all the Muslims who gathered yearly in the Hejaz in ever-increasing numbers. Obviously Sheikh Hamdullah did not expect this marriage to constitute a true union. On the contrary, it was the sheikh’s express wish that Doctor Nuri should return to the guesthouse and to his spouse’s side as soon as possible.

“What does Doctor Nuri think?”

Even though it was to be a marriage of convenience, the Princess would still have to divorce Doctor Nuri to marry the sheikh. There were two ways to arrange this: either the Prince Consort himself could do it by saying “I divorce you!” three times, or Princess Pakize could file for divorce in the Mingherian courts if her husband remained imprisoned for longer than four years.

“I was not even aware that Doctor Nuri was in prison.”

“He is about to be sentenced, but he will be pardoned by His Holiness the Sheikh immediately thereafter, and presented with a First-Class Medal of the State of Mingheria.”

“It is rather difficult for me to reach a conclusion on this matter without a letter from Doctor Nuri advising on what the most appropriate course of action would be.”

The letter arrived later that same day, with Doctor Nuri writing that he was comfortable enough in the Castle prison (he had requested clean underwear, woolen socks, and two fresh shirts too), and indicating that it would be better for Princess Pakize to make this important decision herself without being swayed by her husband’s opinion. Princess Pakize was thankful that her husband had not sought to coerce her in any way, not even to save his own life.

But it was not true that her husband was comfortable and safe in his cell. Knowing that the plague had spread to every corner of the Castle, and that there was no time to lose, Princess Pakize did not get the chance to negotiate the details of the wedding and photograph as she would have liked to do.

“Who will give me away?” was all that she could muster. “I should like to say ‘I do’ myself!”

Princess Pakize was also determined to choose her own wedding dress. Sheikh Hamdullah’s entourage wanted her to use the same white dress and the same jewelry she had worn during her wedding at the Yıldız Palace five months ago, which Abdul Hamid had also attended, but Princess Pakize insisted on a traditional and characteristically Mingherian red wedding gown similar to the one she had seen Zeynep wear at her wedding with the Major, and ultimately her request was accepted.

On Thursday, the twenty-second of August, half an hour after midday prayers, the armored landau carrying the President of Mingheria Sheikh Hamdullah Effendi arrived in Mingheria Square, formerly known as the State Hall Square. Chief Minister Nimetullah Effendi had placed sentries on the President’s route from the Halifiye lodge to the Ministerial Headquarters, and there were numerous guards inside the Ministries building too. Mousetraps had also been laid out in every corner, underneath stairways, and along the walls.

When she was informed that the sheikh had arrived, Princess Pakize stepped out of her room, where she had been waiting in her red bridal gown and with her head carefully covered. The parlormaid who had helped the Princess into her simple, tasteful dress, had changed into a clean outfit of her own, and followed behind the Princess.

According to Reşit Ekrem Adıgüç, the most charming and entertaining of Mingheria’s popular historians, it took a grand total of nine minutes for Princess Pakize to make the trip to the floor below, get married, have her photograph taken, and return to her guesthouse room. In her letter to her sister, Princess Pakize devoted only a single page to those nine minutes, and seemed to take neither the event itself nor the pomp around it particularly seriously. She had nodded in polite greeting at the witnesses, the sheikh, and the imam of the Blind Mehmet Pasha Mosque, who would be performing the ritual, and spent the duration of the ceremony with her eyes lowered like a bashful little girl, only speaking when it was strictly necessary.

What made the whole affair so strange, distasteful, and objectionable was that the seventy-two-year-old Sheikh Hamdullah was fifty years older than his bride. As for the bride herself, she considered the sheikh to be an opportunist with an unseemly habit of exploiting Islam for his political ends (much as her own uncle did sometimes). Princess Pakize detested the sheikh, who had sentenced Governor Sami Pasha, Pharmacist Nikiforos, and many others to death purely to consolidate his hold on power and spread fear among his people.

But she was still surprised to find the sheikh even older, wearier, and more “featureless” than she had imagined. The sheikh tried to catch her eye and smile at her, but Princess Pakize averted her gaze. They sat a little apart in the spot indicated by Vanyas, the photographer assigned to the ceremony, and another photographer sent by the Arkata Times, and posed like a pair of tired but happy newlyweds.

Their hands were resting on a pair of dainty tea tables which had been placed in front of them. There was still some distance between them, but at the two photographers’ cheerful insistence, Sheikh Hamdullah shifted a little closer to the Princess. Then, upon further exhortation from the photographers, the sheikh placed his hand on Princess Pakize’s for a moment, before quickly withdrawing it. Princess Pakize would later write to her sister Hatice that she had found the gesture abhorrent.

CHAPTER 71

The photographs were published on the front pages of the island’s four newspapers, including its official gazette, in special issues printed expressly for the purpose. Princess Pakize was so embarrassed that she couldn’t even look at the pictures. She spent the day after the wedding crying silently in her room in helpless fury, for her husband had still not been released, and she had begun to think she must have been tricked. Her husband might not even know what had happened. She did not want anyone to see her tears, and she couldn’t write letters either. Most upsetting of all was the thought that her father might see the photographs in the newspapers too.