Enlightenment (38 page)

8) But there is also his statement: we ignore his words at our peril. So I quote:

9) From this we can be sure that our unfortunate friend is warning us to accept no compromises. From this we must deduce that Sinan’s incarceration in the country of his birth will be a long one. As we look into the future, we can be sure of only one thing: there are no quick fixes. For the country that invented fast food retains a deep and unshakeable faith in the slow justice. One might, as a foreigner, wish to sneer from the sidelines. But as someone well acquainted with the history of American politics and political thought, I must also add that I am confident the heartfelt grassroots rumblings at perceived injustices will ensure the system rights itself with its customary magnificence when the case goes to appeal.

10) In the meantime, we can take comfort in the fact that, although the fate of Sinan Sinanoğlu and Jeannie remain uncertain, we have been able to reach a happy resolution of the dispute over their child.

The book in your hands has been published – and, for the first time, edited – as the companion piece of a more exhaustive (and, dare I say it, more responsible) study of the issues it raises. This study is the fruit of a triptych of workshops held last summer in the immediate aftermath of M’s untoward disappearance and the simultaneous
flooding of the internet with her confession in its raw, unedited form. These were triangular in formation, occurring on the same fine June weekend in the US, the UK and our own Boğaziçi University. Our collective title,
The East, the West, and the Other
, reflects our sweeping intentions. Though I feel I must reiterate that we did not, as some critics claimed, take aim at the deep state.

Although we look far beyond the individualism so heartrendingly displayed by its gushing if well-meaning author and (by proxy) my dear and sorely missed soulmate, Jeannie Wakefield, our academic tome contains three chapters dealing specifically with the question of authorship. Two of these question the authenticity of the Divine Ms M’s sources – can we say for sure that Jeannie left a letter in her computer, or ever kept a journal? How much did her unauthorised biographer embroider, and how much did she invent? The third and more significant chapter seeks to fill, in a spirit of sympathy and solidarity, a number of lamentable lacunae in the author’s understanding of the country and the chapters of its history she claims to have witnessed at first hand. For though she is forever reminding us of her close emotional connections to the land of her lost childhood, she still does not understand us. If I add that she perhaps never will, I hope that my readers will see in this sentiment a heartfelt longing for her safe return.

The final chapter of our scholarly collection looks at the scandal’s effects on domestic discourses. Its title (
How Does the World See Us?
)
will perhaps lack resonance for the Western reader: it refers to a much-used headline in the Turkish press, which has been long accustomed to scouring the international media for any mention of Turkey and then publishing said mentions in pirated (for which read ‘badly translated’) form. As anyone who has ever scoured the international media for any mention of Turkey can confirm, the number of mentions in a normal year is dismally low. Against this ‘feast or famine’ background, it was inevitable that the sudden appearance in virtual reality of this lush if ill-considered
modern-day
‘
J’Accuse
’ would, with its all-American villain, cause a hurricane of concern, criticism and moral outrage.

Amid the largely senseless
sturm und drang
we can, nonetheless,
identify several significant developments:

1) Although İsmet has not been and most probably never will be held accountable for his actions in the well-shaded past, we can safely say that the scandal generated by the lascivious revelations contained in these pages has well and truly nipped his political aspirations in their buds.

2) Although he is and most probably will continue to be most helpful to the American friends he made during his time as an intelligence officer and his subsequent career as all-purpose go-between, and will undoubtedly provide invaluable help to all those waging war on terror in his capacity as Turkey’s leading arms dealer, İsmet Şen is unlikely to be able to arrange for the use of our homeland as a training station for the so-called ‘private armies’ that certain unnamed Western powers hope to train up in time for the regional Armageddon they have done so much to stoke.

3) We can, however, be sure that the scattered but highly incriminating film footage gathered by my friend Sinan Sinanoğlu in utmost secrecy in the year preceding his unlawful detention will clinch this happy outcome, just as we can be almost certain that it was the threat of this same footage seeing the light of day that precipitated his arrest.

4) But sadly, it remains to be seen what effect this footage – hastily and I fear clumsily assembled for mass consumption by myself and other frantic well-wishers, and therefore sorely lacking in artistic merit – will have on the future course of imperialism.

5) Moving on now to the real villain – for İsmet, despite his swagger, serves only as his handmaiden. Whatever shape our mentor – our betrayer – takes next, Dutch Harding under any alias is unlikely to be able to operate effectively as a spokesman for the EU and democracy, while also ensuring that Turkey bends to the American military will.

6) While the story contained within these pages has no doubt contributed to public awareness of the links between the intelligence services of the two nations, our first and foremost thanks must go to my onetime enemy Jordan Frick.

7) So perhaps a public apology is in order. I hasten to add that
the man himself is aware of my views, though I am not in a position to divulge the when, the how, the where. Whatever I might think of Jordan Frick between the sheets, my admiration for his steely courage in the field now knows no bounds. The snake he seeks still lurks in the shadows, but Jordan Frick’s sterling investigation into the true identity of our faithless mentor has, at least, alerted the world to the true crisis in espionage.

8) If, in so doing, he has suggested that the deep state has its headquarters not in Ankara but in Washington, his words should not, perhaps, be taken at face value. For there is no such thing as the deep state. Without proof, it remains lazy journalism.

9) At least for the time being.

10) As for our dear friend Jeannie Wakefield, there is, I regret to say, nothing new to report. The US authorities continue to insist that the blurry photograph of a woman in a jacket said to be packed with explosives is all they have in the way of ‘evidence’. The
Michigan-based
organisation that calls itself ‘The Friends of Sinan Sinanoğlu’ has, however, subjected the same photograph to analysis, casting serious doubt on its authenticity. There are other anomalies: her ‘foiled attempt’ is said to have been taken place as she attempted to enter her country from Canada. But there is no record of such an incident on either side of the border. A trawling of immigration forms has failed to establish any trace of her in the entire continent.

11) In the absence of hard facts, there have been rumours. There have been sightings. In the hundreds! In terms of ubiquity, she is fast outpacing Elvis – from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea.

12) Though some have been more promising than others. If these more promising sightings have been in countries implicated in the recent scandals about spy planes, we can draw our own conclusions.

13) Moving finally to the Misguided Ms M, the wayward though beloved classmate who chose, without first seeking our permission, to risk her very life to turn us in a public
cause célèbre
, there is no news either.

14) By which I mean to say that we intend to say no more than this for the public record. Should readers see fit to criticize my reticence,
I can only respond by clinging to the golden thread of friendship as I remind them of the clear and present dangers that full disclosure might bring.

The reckless Ms M deserves our respect, our protection, our best wishes, and – in spite of everything – our love. So it is with a heavy heart that I move on to the larger issues our missing friend has (albeit with the noblest of motives) forced into the footlights. As difficult as it is to critique a folk legend, I would not be doing my duty as an editor if I did not admit to having serious misgivings about her story. I have felt it my duty to present it in its original form, correcting only its multitudinous literals, and desisting from footnotes. However, it has been a painful experience for all of us who have figured as her characters. And perhaps it is as simple as this: she has entrapped us in a story that is not of our own making, a story that reflects her passions and obsessions at the expense of ours, and now – due to its legendary status – we must share our lives in chapter as well as in verse.

But how thin and paltry her portrayals! As proudly as I strut her stage, I remain a noisy cipher – my family, my adventures, my philosophical evolutions and even my work banished to the shadows. And there she is – clutching her angst to her chest, clamouring for the truth, the truth, the truth…but somehow, never quite grasping the facts. And (perhaps most tragically) never grasping their true essence. Her account (I am not the first to say this) is littered with inaccuracies, cultural misunderstandings, and misreading of conversational nuances that – as small as most might be – cast doubt on her narration.

I can imagine that if she read these lines – and in spite of everything, I hope and pray she does – she would point out that she never intended to have the last word, that one good story should spawn another. That there is nothing to stop us from refuting and disputing her. That there is no point to a good story unless it encourages others to talk back. She would no doubt point out that this is what I am doing, in actual fact, as I compose this afterword. But I am in this book as I am in the world – a small and lonely coda to an occidental ode.

How could it be otherwise? The God of Ripping Yarns does not love all His subjects equally. What He privileges above all else is the
Western gaze. And oh, how this gaze suffocates its lowly Eastern serfs! How it simplifies, mystifies, misconstrues, distorts! We are only of interest if we reflect its anxieties. We are only of consequence if we have provided a new and exotic playground for its warring factions. Or even worse – we are airbrushed of our flaws. We become heroic simply by virtue of possessing virtues decried as Neanderthal in other, more enlightened continents.

Oh, how sweet we all look on the terrace of the Hotel Bebek! Humanity in all its multifarious guises, gazing wondrously at the azure view! As I write these words on the self-same terrace, my view is tinged with jaundiced caution: of the smiles I see around me, I can not find one that is not simpering, conniving, nakedly hypocritical. The two women in gold at the next table – they are speaking to the poor, disheartened and so very dignified waiter as if he were a goat. As if they themselves were of consequence. As if the one’s father did not make his fortune in a land swindle and the other had not contracted gonorrhoea while ‘dancing’ on an illicit jaunt in Rio with her salsa teacher.

And those businessmen over there. The ones with the ‘models’. I went to school with one of their wives. What has he told her this evening? That he’s working late? That man at the table behind them – the fat one with the toothy smile who’s jumped to his feet to give a warm and loud embrace to the famous author who has just walked in. That man is my colleague, and only yesterday, he denounced this very author as vermin. As a traitor to the nation. What can I say? We live in a country of fakes, insinuators and poseurs.

A country of crooks. Crooks walking free, flashing their ill-begotten wealth with ever greater arrogance. At that table in the corner, the man now ordering his second bottle of champagne, in that dulcet voice, his arms raised to a dizzy height so that the world can admire his Rolex. He’s İsmet’s nephew. How warmly he greeted me when I walked in! How solicitously he enquired about Haluk’s health! As if he had not heard about the heart trouble! As if it would not trouble any heart to sit here waiting helplessly for news of lost friends.

Does this dulcet-toned nephew know something I have yet to hear? Am I to conclude that the stupid boy is repeating to his
partners-in-gangsterdom 
some snippet about me garnered from The Book of Books? Or is his wide smile an indication that he is already one step ahead of me in the game of revenge? Could he tell me, if he wished, where our friend Jeannie is languishing? The fact that I am even asking myself this question is an indication of my wavering confidence in my country, its future and my very soul. Our enemies are prospering, and they are staring us in the face! Which reminds me of the maddening question Jeannie was so fond of. How is it, she used to ask, pursing her lips in that puzzled, musing way she had – how is it that you could go through what you’ve been through, and come out of prison to take up life where you left it and
even find the strength and composure to work alongside the very people who turned you in?
So Jeannie, shall I tell you why I’ve worked all these years surrounded by my enemies? I’ve never had a choice in the matter. They just won’t go away.