The Bastard of Istanbul

“This child of yours will lead the masses, and bring peace and justice to humankind!”

Zeliha’s proclamation is cheeky; however, the scene foreshadows Asya’s future role in helping to close the divide between Armenians and Turks. Asya does grow into a young woman with a sense of “peace and justice,” which helps to explain her liberal attitude toward people, such as the transgender prostitute to whom she gives a bracelet. Asya inherits this sensibility from her mother, whose own sense of justice compels her to reveal Asya’s paternity.

“Her husband’s family had wanted to name the baby girl after her grandmother’s mother. How deeply Rose lamented not having named her something less outlandish, like Annie or Katie or Cyndie, instead of accepting the name her mother-in-law had come up with. A child was supposed to have a childlike name and ‘Armanoush’ was anything but that.”

Rose’s aversion to her daughter’s name is twofold: she dislikes its connection to the Armenian culture that she never bothered to understand, and, similarly, the name indicates a level of cultural distance from her daughter. Part of Rose’s impulse to keep Armanoush in a childlike state is not only to maintain control over her but to help Rose think that Armanoush will not abandon her. When Rose finds out, later in the novel, that Armanoush has gone to Istanbul, it is a realization of Rose’s worst fear: that Armanoush would choose her Armenian identity, Rose associates Armenians with her rejection.

“We are stuck between the East and the West. Between the past and the future. On the one hand there are the secular modernists, so proud of the regime they constructed, you cannot breathe a critical word [….] On the other hand there are the conventional traditionalists, so infatuated with the Ottoman past, you cannot breathe a critical word [….] What is left for us?”

Asya’s lover, the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist, explains the dual nature of Turkey’s sociopolitical fabric. This duality shows up elsewhere in the novel, when Grandma Gülsüm condemns Auntie Banu’s decision to wear a veil while also cursing her youngest daughter, Zeliha, for wearing short skirts and having a nose ring. Men try to establish authoritarian rule over women, while traditional gender roles are also upturned by women like Zeliha and Asya, who exercise sexual and economic independence.

“She told them the story of a man who decided to travel the entire globe round and round, in an endeavor to escape his mortality. North and south, east and west, he wandered every which way he could. Once, in one of his numerous trips, he unexpectedly ran into Azrail, the angel of death, in Cairo.”

Auntie Banu tells Asya this fable, though Asya has heard it numerous times. The story also serves as an allegory for Mustafa’s existence. Though transcontinental travel is a motif in the novel, instrumental to those fleeing persecution or in search of family connections, Mustafa is the only character who travels to distance himself from his origins and to start a life independent of his history. The fable foreshadows his eventual inability to escape his fate.

“Don’t get me wrong, I can see how tragic the past was for your family, and I respect your wish to keep the memories alive come what may so that the sorrow of your ancestors is not forgotten. But that is precisely where our paths diverge. Yours is a crusade for remembrance, whereas if it were me, I’d rather be just like Petite-Ma, with no capacity for remembrance whatsoever.”

Asya establishes the difference between her and Armanoush. While Armanoush is eager to recover her family’s history to learn more about who she is, Asya avoids this out of fear of learning her origins. Her use of the word “crusade” is ironic, given the Ottoman Empire’s role in the Crusades. Similarly, Armanoush must contend with aspects of the West—her mother, her cyberfriends in Café Constantinople—who are averse to her being in Istanbul.

“Only once had she asked him a personal favor, just for herself, a most confidential question: Who was Asya’s father? Mr. Bitter gave her an answer, the answer, but she had indignantly, indefatigably refused to believe him, although she knew perfectly well that an enslaved djinni could never lie to his master. She refused to believe until her heart one day stopped defying what her mind had long recognized. After that Auntie Banu had never been the same.”

Auntie Banu’s refusal to believe in the answer to her question indicates that there is shame in Mr. Bitter’s response. This is the reader’s first clue that Zeliha’s story about getting impregnated by a fiancé who abandoned her is false. It also indicates that her mother’s insistence on referring to her as a “divorcée,” despite her awareness that Zeliha was never married, is another attempt to bury the truth under layers of make-believe.

“That didn’t happen […] We never heard of anything like that […] Look, I am very sorry for your family, I offer you my condolences. But you have to understand it was a time of war. People died on both sides. Do you have any idea how many Turks have died in the hands of Armenian rebels? Did you ever think about the other side of the story? I’ll bet you didn’t! [...] It is all tragic but we need to understand that 1915 was not 2005.”

The Nonnationalist Scenarist of Ultranationalist Movements is a denier of the Armenian Genocide and an apologist for the Turkish government, which further reveals the hypocrisy of his non-nationalist stance. A common way to disregard the lingering wounds left over from history is to dismiss it all as having happened long ago, while the other method is to diminish the impact of an experience on a community. The scenarist does both while vacillating between denial, a false expression of pity, and indignation.

“Still, Mustafa was enough, he was all they needed to continue the family line. There was Mustafa, pampered, mollycoddled, spoiled, always favored over the girls, his every whim catered to […] then the melody ceased and darkness and despair set into the dream: Mustafa left for the United States never to return.”

Mustafa was the son whom Grandma Gülsüm and Levent Kazanci always wanted. Their belief that a son would be more valuable than a daughter led them to treat Mustafa as though he were special and could do no wrong. This sense of entitlement would impact how he treated others, particularly Zeliha, whose presence in the family as a source of moral shame would further buoy Mustafa’s sense of righteousness but also lead him to commit a heinous act. His self-imposed exile also ironically references Armanoush’s screen name, “Madame My-Exiled-Soul.”

“The book was titled The Little Lost Pigeon and the Blissful Country. It was about a pigeon lost up there in the blue skies while flying with his family and friends over a blissful country. The pigeon would stop at numerous villages, towns, and cities, searching for his loved ones, and at each stop he would listen to a new story.”

This is the title of the book that Hovhannes Stamboulian is working on shortly before Turkish officers arrest him for being a poet. The unpublished children’s book echoes Armanoush’s journey to Istanbul, where she, too, is in search of loved ones and listens to numerous stories, including that of Zeliha’s Armenian boyfriend, Aram, to understand the city.

“Look, the Armenians in the diaspora have no Turkish friends. Their only acquaintance with the Turks is through the stories they heard from their grandparents or else from one another. And those stories are so terribly heartbreaking. But believe me, just like in every nation, in Turkey too there are good people and bad people. It is as simple as that.”

Aram Martirossian, Zeliha’s partner, explains to Armanoush why so many Armenians whose origins are abroad have developed hatred of Turks. Bigotry, Aram contends, is borne from ignorance and hearsay. Aram neither dismisses the gravity of the Armenian Genocide as the Nonnationalist Scenarist of Ultranationalist Movies did nor does he express helpless ignorance, as Asya does. Instead, he takes the nuanced view of accepting that while the genocide was real, it is not proof that Turks are any more evil than the people of any other nation.

“I do recognize your loss and grief. I do not deny the atrocities committed. It’s just my past that I am recoiling from. I don’t know who my father is or what his story was like. If I had a chance to know more about my past, even if it were sad, would I choose to know it or not? The dilemma of my life.”

Asya is chatting with Armenians from the diaspora in Café Constantinople, a chatroom that Armanoush regularly logs onto. Asya is only able to relate to the Armenian Genocide through her own experience of being “a bastard,” which is also a form of loss. Disinterested in history and disinclined to acknowledge any vulnerability, she can’t empathize with genocide victims and their descendants.

“‘Am I responsible for my father’s crime?’ A Girl Named Turk asked. ‘You are responsible for recognizing your father’s crime,’ Anti-Khavurma replied.”

Asya is speaking to the members of Café Constantinople under the screenname that Armanoush has given her. She contextualizes the Armenian Genocide within her familial experience to relate better to it. Her question is both literal here, in that she is asking if she is responsible for what her ancestors did to the Armenians, but it’s also rhetorical as the reader later finds out that she is her uncle’s daughter.

“Well, the truth is, dear Madame My-Exiled-Soul and dear A Girl Named Turk…some among the Armenians in the diaspora would never want the Turks to recognize the genocide. If they do so, they’ll pull the rug out from under our feet and take the strongest bond that unites us. Just like the Turks have been in the habit of denying their wrongdoing, the Armenians have been in the habit of savoring the cocoon of victimhood. Apparently, there are some old habits that need to be changed on both sides.”

Baron Baghdassarian chimes in to the discussion about Turkish guilt for the Armenian genocide and gives a rather surprising answer, considering his previous tendency to mercilessly condemn Turks. He argues that both sides are invested in maintaining a particular point of view as a signal of their cultural membership. This is what will make Aram Martirossian’s later comment so interesting: he is neither interested in claiming victimhood nor in denying history, thereby never establishing himself as solidly Turk or Armenian but as someone more exemplary of Istanbul’s culturally-interconnected history.

“He had lived two very different lives. Mustafa and Mostapha. And sometimes the only way to bridge the gap between the two names seemed to silence them simultaneously—to bring both of his lives to an abrupt end. He shunned the thought. A sound similar to sighing.”

Mustafa’s secret, which is unknown to his wife and stepdaughter, makes him feel as though he’s two different people—a quiet, rather shy man in his new country and a vicious sexual deviant in his home country. Both of these things are true about him, revealing the complexity of human character. His inability to live with his guilt over raping his sister makes him contemplate suicide. His “sigh” is an indication of exhaustion from both the burden of his past and the need to maintain the façade of his present self.

“Ashure was the symbol of continuity and stability, the epitome of the good days to come after each storm, no matter how frightening the storm had been.”

Ashure is a traditional Turkish dessert that, according to legend, was developed by the community that survived the Biblical flood. Though the pudding is Mustafa’s favorite dessert, and prepared by Grandma Gülsüm to welcome him home, the food will play a role in the novel of providing Mustafa with the ending that he craves while also unearthing the painful secret that keeps Asya from knowing the true identity of her father. The unearthing of this secret will finally provide Asya with the closeness that she has always wanted with her mother, while also freeing Zeliha from having to carry the shame of her rape.

“Just like his mother, his father came from a family deported from Turkey in 1915. Sarkis Tchakhmakchian and Shushan Stamboulian shared something in common, something their children could only sense but never fully grasp. So many silences were scattered among their words. When coming to America they had left another life in another country, and they knew that no matter how often and how truthfully you evoked the past, some things could never be told.”

Aram Tchakhmakchian considers his parents and the sense of distance that he and his siblings feel from them. The “something” that his parents shared in common were the experiences of genocide and exile. The pain of discussing these experiences caused them to omit many of the details of their personal histories. It is that history that Armanoush has traveled to Istanbul to recover. However, the narrative establishes how some aspects of history can never be transmitted faithfully, given the difficulty of communicating trauma with accuracy.

“While passing the brunette’s row, Mustafa noticed uneasily that the woman wore a brashly short skirt and had crossed her legs in such a way that you could easily be fooled into thinking that you might catch a glimpse of her underwear. He didn’t like the disconcerting feeling the miniskirt brought on him; heavy, thorny memories he wished he could jettison once and for all; the sight of his younger sister, Zeliha, who had always been fond of such skirts, scurrying on the cobblestones of Istanbul in painfully hurried steps as if to escape her own shadow.”

Mustafa’s sighting of the woman on the plane brings back memories of Zeliha, which also trigger memories of his past sexual deviance and insecurities around sex during his youth. These are his “heavy, thorny memories,” both weighing heavily on his conscience and threatening to hurt those around him. Now that he is flying back to Istanbul and will once again be confronted by his sister, Mustafa senses that the past is colliding with his present.

“In the mornings Mustafa would watch Rose toil in the kitchen. They both loved the kitchen, although for completely different reasons. Rose loved it because she loved cooking, and it made her feel at home. As for Mustafa, he simply liked to watch her amid the multiple ordinary details […] Watching her make pancakes was one of the most soothing sights life had ever bestowed upon him.”

In the novel, food preparation is key to bringing families together. For the Kazancis and the Tchakhmakchians, food is a way of relating to cultural traditions. Mustafa doesn’t have this connection with food, given his desire to forget Turkish traditions; instead, he finds refuge in the simple, American foods that Rose cooks. Her presence makes his life in the United States feel real. The “ordinary details” are indicative of regularity and normalcy. Mustafa wants very much to feel normal, due to his special treatment growing up and his past perversions.

“As Sultan the Fifth purred under the table waiting to be fed another chunk of feta cheese […] a tea glass cracked in Asya’s hands. So unexpectedly did this happen that it gave her a jolt. All she knew was that she had as usual filled up half the tea glass with black, brewed tea […] and then, just when she was about to take a sip, heard a crack. The glass fractured from top to bottom in a zigzag, like an ominous rift appearing on the face of the earth from a violent earthquake.”

The author frequently uses tea glasses to indicate the impending break of something already fragile. Zeliha is preparing to pick up Mustafa and Rose from the airport, bringing him home for the first time since his departure from Istanbul when he was 18. What Asya doesn’t yet realize is that his reentry into the family’s konak will symbolically shatter her understanding of her own family history.

“If she went to her father’s grave, Zeliha knew she would want to talk to him, and if she talked to him, she might cry, cracking like a tea glass under an evil eye […] Recently she had promised herself she would never become one of those weepy women and that whenever she needed to shed tears, she would do it alone.”

Zeliha refrains from accompanying her mother and sisters to Levent Kazanci’s grave. Zeliha disliked her father but never learned why he was so strict and unloving with his children. She is afraid of the pain of not feeling her father’s love but resents that she should feel anything at all for a man who seemed determined to break his children. The symbol of the tea glass works here to indicate her feeling vulnerable to forces bent on destroying her, as well as worrying that an association with womanhood, particularly the Kazanci women’s habit of visiting the grave, is to embrace weakness.

“You know what your problem is? Spoiled, you are too spoiled, precious phallus! Get out of my room.”

Zeliha and Mustafa are left alone in the family home while their mother and sisters go to visit their father’s grave. After Mustafa tries to assert dominance over Zeliha, she expresses her resentment toward his favored status within the family. She reduces him to his genitals to indicate that his privilege is based only on his arbitrary status as a male. She doesn’t yet know the extent of her brother’s insecurity around her sexuality, which causes him to disregard the boundary that she attempts to set by banishing him from her room.

“Now, he felt like the past was returning. And for it to exist, he had to be erased…”

Throughout the novel, Mustafa struggles with his inability to atone for his past crime against his younger sister. His response to shaming his family was to keep his distance, but Armanoush’s presence in Istanbul has since made that impossible. Throughout the novel, various characters struggle with their pasts and often choose to forget pieces of their histories in order to live more fulfilling lives in the present.

“As Asya gaped at her mother, it dawned on her why she hadn’t objected to her daughter calling her ‘auntie.’”

Zeliha has just revealed to Asya that Mustafa is her father. Asya’s gaping mouth is an indication of her shock at the revelation of the long-held secret. The truth “dawns” on Asya, as though the day of her uncle/father’s funeral signals the beginning of a new day and a new relationship between her and Zeliha, one in which there may be fuller acknowledgement of her maternity.