Without a Country Read online

  ALSO BY AYŞE KULIN

  Last Train to Istanbul

  Love in Exile

  Aylin

  Rose of Sarajevo

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Ayşe Kulin

  Translation copyright © 2018 by Kenneth Dakan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as Kanadı Kırık Kuşlar by Everest Yayınları in Turkey in 2016. Translated from Turkish by Kenneth Dakan. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2018.

  Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503900974 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1503900975 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781503901001 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1503901009 (paperback)

  Cover design by David Drummond

  First edition

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  January 25, 2016 . . .

  Part One

  Again, We Yearn for Home

  Farewell, Homeland

  Time in Zurich

  A City with a Sea Running Through It

  A City Created out of Nothing

  Miracle at the Ministry

  Fifteen Million Strong in Fifteen Years

  A Tangle

  Setbacks

  Is There a Spy Among Us?

  Ankara, Ankara . . . Cure for All Ills

  Turk! Be Proud, Work Hard, Trust . . . and Scheme

  Farewell to the Father

  The Late-Night Telegram

  Part Two

  From Susy Schliemann to Suzi Şiliman

  Hanna

  Hanna’s Ploy

  Surprises

  Suzi’s Life in the New House

  As the Years Flow By

  Suzi’s Choice

  September Storm

  An Unexpected Guest

  Life Changes

  Confrontation

  Naming Baby

  The Wedding Gift

  Flesh and Blood

  The Unraveling

  A Baby Already on Guard

  Scenes from Sude’s Life

  A Door on Life

  New Horizons

  Part Three

  April Fools

  A Broken-Winged Bird

  Love in the Days of Resistance

  Ups and Downs

  Time to Leave

  About the Author

  About the Translator

  Author’s Note

  As a Turk, I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to the scientists, some of whom appear by name in the pages of this novel, who helped to modernize Turkish universities and educate a golden generation of my fellow countrymen.

  Hitler expelled these men and women from German universities in the 1930s simply for being Jewish, leftists, or critics of Nazism.

  I would like to dedicate this novel to Professor Philipp Schwartz, the neuropathologist who inspired my character Gerhard Schliemann, along with:

  Curt Kosswig, who was instrumental in the founding of the Bird Paradise nature reserve in Manyas and the city zoos in Istanbul and Ankara that I fondly remember visiting as a child;

  Dr. Eckstein, who treated me for typhoid when I was seven years old;

  Professor Ernst Hirsch and Professor Dr. F. Neumark, whose memoirs I read while researching this novel;

  Professor Carl Elbert, the art director of the Ankara Opera;

  Professor Kantorowicz, a pioneer of modern dentistry;

  and all the others who played leading roles in the advancement of art and science, some of whom are now resting in cemeteries in Ankara and Istanbul.

  January 25, 2016

  10:17 p.m.

  Dear Esra, beloved granddaughter,

  You were upset with me when we parted, the first time that’s ever happened. As you were flying back to İzmir, no doubt a bit shocked by my reaction, I was thinking I shouldn’t have brought up that unpleasant subject right when you were leaving. There is a lot we need to talk over, more than I can possibly put in an e-mail.

  Esra, my dear, I was insisting you move to England because I have your best interests at heart. Surely, you can’t think that I wouldn’t prefer you here with me in my final years? I know how much you love your homeland and that you adore Istanbul. But it is our fate to move from place to place. My father and mother, too, loved their homeland and their city. But the day came when they had to leave that home behind without so much as washing the cups from which they’d drunk their morning coffee. Father and Mother began a new life in a new country, and they suppressed all those painful memories. They wanted to raise their children free of old hatreds. Your own mother did not know the real reason we moved to this country until many years later. She thought your grandfather was offered a position at the university hospital and then just fell in love with Istanbul and decided to stay. All of that is true, if incomplete. He did remain here for many years because of his love for this country and its people.

  Back then, foreigners were treated well. People didn’t dwell on religious differences. In Istanbul, particularly, where Greeks, Armenians, and Jews had lived with Muslim Turks for centuries, all faiths were respected. Muslims would light candles in churches. Christians and Jews would make sacrificial vows at Muslim shrines and distribute meat to the needy if their wishes were granted. As you know, my dear girl, all that has changed. The country that centuries ago welcomed the Jews fleeing Spain and then embraced our family in the 1930s is no more. Those wonderful days are gone forever. Unfortunately, politics has contaminated religion, which should be a conduit for love.

  It’s too late, much too late in life, for me to emigrate. You’re still young, though, and you deserve to live in peace. You were right to say that Turkey is your country, but the hatred and violence are too much. Many years ago, I criticized my brother for starting a new life in America, but as it turned out, he must have sensed what was coming. Now it’s your turn to fly! Go now, before it’s too late, unless, like my parents, you’re prepared to flee with only as much of your home as you can squeeze into a handbag. If a certain so-called intellectual had not begun digging into which of us carry Jewish blood in our veins, I would never have told you any of this. You’re right—bombs can explode and injustices are committed everywhere, but here, in a place where hate crimes go unpunished, you are no longer safe. These anti-Semites are filled with hate. At the very least, they will break your heart. And a broken heart aches forever.

  If you complete your specialized training in England, you could get the opportunity to work there or even become a citizen. I will help you any way I can, provided you agree to leave Turkey.

  God willing, we will have time alone together soon, and I will be able to tell you more. Come to Istanbul for the Bairam holiday, and let’s talk then.

  May God watch over you, my dear.

  Your loving grandmother,

  Su

  Part One

  Our Land of the Star and Crescent

  Again, We Yearn for Home

  March 1933

  Frankfurt

  Elsa stood in the doorway, fighting back tears. Permitted to take nothing more than a handbag on her journey, she was agonizing over what to bring. If only she co
uld record every single silly object in her memory for eternity. The Gobelin cushion her grandmother made was resting on the sofa. Intermingled with the porcelain menagerie she had been collecting since childhood, family photographs perched in front of the books lining the shelves. The grandest frame enclosed the wedding photo in which, seated sideways on a taboret, the train of her gown artfully arranged at her feet, Elsa beamed at the camera. Gerhard was standing close behind, his hand on her shoulder as if to say, “Trust me. You will be safe from now on.” But, now, that same man was giving Elsa only minutes to flee her home.

  Were they doing the right thing?

  If only they had waited a little longer. They could have talked it over, come to a decision.

  Elsa walked into the dining room and opened the door of the sideboard. Sinking to her knees, she reached to the back of the bottom shelf and caressed the stack of Meissen dinner plates. It was a wedding gift from Tita and was the most precious item in her aunt’s trousseau. Aunt Tita, with no children of her own, had been like a mother to Elsa—one far more understanding and loving than her real mother was. Elsa’s leather knapsack from her days as a high school Girl Guide was deep. Surely, she could squeeze in a plate or two as a memento? She could almost hear Gerhard’s voice: “Are you out of your mind? We’re trying to escape with our lives, and you’re fussing over some old plates!”

  Okay, but maybe some family photographs. Could she fit an entire album? And what about her hatbox full of precious letters? The ones written by school friends were bound with blue ribbon; the postcards from Father and the instructive epistles from Mother were in a large beige envelope; Gerhard’s awkward professions of love and amateurish poems lay knotted inside a length of lace-edged cloth.

  At the end of that first summer apart, Elsa had commended his decision to study science, joking that he showed no promise as a poet. Gerhard vowed never to write her another love letter, then composed dozens more. The memory of his ingenuous lines had always put a smile on her face, but at this moment, tears welled up in her eyes as she tried to remember the shortest one. Was it: Your eyes of coal / Your hair of silk / The princess of my soul / In my heart forevermore . . . ? Should she take that poem with her to read aloud one distant day to her grandchildren? It gave her a moment of pleasure, this image of herself as a grandmother whose beauty had once inspired flowery tributes, but there was no time now to riffle through old letters. If she wanted grandchildren one day, she would have to hurry.

  Elsa caught sight of her pale face in the sideboard mirror. Her left eye was twitching, that recurring sign of deep distress. Then the tears came. “Thieves!” she screamed between choked sobs. “Those wicked thieves!” Her identity was being stolen. Her history, her memories, her letters, her friends, her house, her street, her city. A madman whose greed had eclipsed his reason was stealing her life, and her husband was powerless to stop him.

  She knew Gerhard was blameless. It was she who had urged her husband to apply to the Universität Frankfurt am Main. A romantic fancy had drawn her here: the writer she most admired was the city’s most famous son. She had believed that, in a city where Goethe’s writing table, his inkpot, and even the cake tins from his kitchen were still preserved, she would be surrounded by art, would breathe it in every moment of every day. If the city’s fathers so cherished Goethe, she was certain they would value ordinary citizens as well, especially those who happened to be scientists.

  Elsa, whose heart still raced every time she walked past Goethe’s house and who knew the great man’s poems by heart, was now forced to concede her naïveté.

  She brushed away the tear sliding down her cheek and picked up the letter on the table.

  Elsa,

  The clerk bringing you this note thinks that I have forgotten my exam questions at home. Get the beige envelope in the right-hand drawer of the bookcase, put my passport in it, and give it to him. Then, go immediately to Peter’s school and pull him out of class. Tell the teacher your mother has fallen ill (don’t worry; she’s fine) and that you need to visit her at once. Take nothing but your passports, all your jewelry, and whatever cash is in the safe. Do not draw attention to yourself! Board the first train to Zurich. We will meet at the end of the day at your parents’ house. We must hurry. You understand, don’t you?

  G.

  “All my jewelry?” she grumbled on her way to the bedroom. The only jewelry she owned was the wedding ring on her finger. Oh, and the ruby brooch from Tita. She got the hatbox down from the top shelf, retrieved the key hidden inside, knelt in front of the wardrobe, and opened the safe. Ah, she’d forgotten Gerhard’s gold pocket watch, a wedding gift from her father. There was some costume jewelry on the dresser, but they’d never get anything for it. Oh, the fancy face cream she had bought only last week! But it wouldn’t fit in the bag.

  Idiotic to dwell on such nonsense; there was no time for self-pity. She knotted the ring, watch, and brooch into a handkerchief. She clutched at the gold chain around her neck . . . its dangling pendant . . . good heavens! With trembling hands, she removed the symbol and stuffed it into an envelope, along with the banknotes from the safe. She went to the kitchen. Some coins left over from her daily shopping, the total of her personal savings, were squirreled away in the breadbox. She carefully slipped them into the knapsack and, on a whim, rushed back to the bedroom to grab a small compact and a tube of lipstick. Done.

  It had been nearly half an hour since Helmut the clerk had gone off with Gerhard’s passport, and here she was, still running in circles. Elsa sighed and reluctantly entered the room where her baby daughter was sleeping.

  Gerhard was picking his way across the lawn, mindful of the wildflowers, when he saw a squirrel hop down from a tree, sit upright, and begin sniffing at something between its paws. A smile spread across his face for the first time in days. He and his wife were lucky. At least they didn’t live in Northeim, like his mother and elder sister. The letter from his sister a few weeks earlier had concerned him deeply:

  As if the gray days and bone-chilling damp weren’t bad enough, being surrounded by these gloomy old buildings feels like being buried alive. But nothing’s been worse than the lack of jobs. You remember our neighbor Rudy, about your age? Anyway, he was out of work for nearly two years before he finally found something—and it was thanks to the Nazis! Life had been so hopeless here, and all of a sudden (you won’t believe I’m writing this) the Nazis, those despicable Nazis, showed up to organize festivals, concerts, and parades. Even Mother and I have joined in the fun. And they’ve clamped down hard on disorderly conduct, so there’s no more drunken brawls. They’re helping the needy. They even sent a college student to Gisele’s house—she lives on our corner—to tutor her blockhead son in math. Then, when some other parents asked for tutors too, the Nazis started a special class at the town hall. They keep track of deaths and funerals and send money to the families. Of course, they still don’t like Jews. But so far, they don’t seem to want to bother us, and life here is so much better. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

  Yes, they were lucky to be in Frankfurt, far from those miserable towns where the Nazis held sway.

  He and Elsa had married young and had two healthy, adorable children. Eager to please his future father-in-law, Gerhard had pursued a master of science degree, a decision he’d had no cause to regret. He not only enjoyed his job but also found it deeply rewarding. Furthermore, he and his family were tenants in a so-called zigzag house in one of the new settlements designed by progressive architect Ernst May. The rent was reasonable, even though they lived in a neighborhood of intellectuals just a short walk from the university hospital where he worked. Life was good, but Gerhard couldn’t help feeling anxious about the increasingly harsh rhetoric from Berlin. He could see that all was not well in his homeland—or in the rest of Europe. In the wake of the Great War, the continent was struggling with border disputes, unrest, mass internal migration . . . Gerhard felt blessed to be able to devote himself to his resea
rch and his students. He’d always assumed that if he kept a safe distance from politics, he would be left in peace. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  For all his determined optimism, the raid a few nights earlier had left him shaken. He and his wife had just settled into bed when they heard cars, the furious barking of the neighbor’s dog, and heavy boots in the stairwell. They’d leapt out of bed and rushed to the window, seeing several police vehicles parked out front. Ears pressed to the front door, they’d tried to understand what was happening and prayed their children wouldn’t wake up. Loud knocking. Bellowed questions. Doors opening and closing. A short time later, the squeal of tires announced that the police were leaving. The apartment building became deathly quiet. When Gerhard reached for the doorknob, Elsa seized his wrist. Her left eye was twitching.

  “I need to find out what’s happening. I’ll ask the Hansels and be right back,” Gerhard said. He went down to the floor below and tapped on the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Gerhard Schliemann, your neighbor. You don’t have to open the door, Mr. Hansel. I was wondering if you could tell me why the police came.”

  “They were searching for a gun. Supposedly, they’d been tipped off. What would I be doing with a gun? What they really wanted was to intimidate me.”

  “You have my sympathies. Are you all right? Do you need anything? I can bring you a sedative.”

  “I don’t want a sedative. But can you bring me some peace of mind? I need the strongest dose you’ve got,” the elderly man said.

  “Peace of mind is in short supply these days. We’ll have to try the black market. Good night, neighbor.”

  Elsa, who was waiting for him at the front door, ran into his arms. “The next time, it’ll be us. Mark my words. They’ll find some excuse. My God! You haven’t brought your father’s rifle home, have you?”

  “No, of course not. What business would I have with a rifle? I gave it back after I went hunting in the village.”

  “I’m scared, Gerhard.”

  Her left eye was still twitching.