My Father’s Books

At a Crossroads in the Labyrinth

135 At a Cross­ roads in the Lab­ y­ rinth When he en­ tered Con­ stan­ tin­ o­ ple for the first time, he was over­ come with an in­ tense ex­ cite­ ment. This ­ two-thousand-year-old city had the means to cap­ ti­ vate his young soul. In­ tox­ i­ cated by its un­ par­ alleled splen­ dors, he ­ walked ­ around this en­ chant­ ing city for days and ­ nights on end; he found ways out from the war­ ren of nar­ row al­ leys and ­ emerged happy at the cross­ roads. He ­ stopped along the quays of the ­ Golden Horn and ­ quickly de­ vel­ oped a kin­ ship with the sea. In the dis­ tance he ­ watched the ships re­ turn­ ing from or de­ part­ ing to Eu­ rope or dis­ tant Asia. He had heard a great deal about Con­ stan­ tin­ o­ ple from his ­ mother, but what he saw with his own eyes was more pow­ er­ ful than any words could de­ scribe. It was worth pour­ ing one’s youth into this won­ drous city with its bound­ less op­ por­ tu­ nities. Con­ stan­ tin­ o­ ple be­ came his Paris. Fresh in his mind were the im­ ages and ideas ex­ pressed in ­ Balzac’s works, which he read with en­ thu­ siasm. He ­ learned ­ French, just like every other true Bal­ kan auto­ did­ act. Bal­ zac was his most be­ loved au­ thor in the world. He also read Stend­ hal and Flau­ bert, but it was to the works of Bal­ zac that he most often re­ turned. Often, as he stood at the ­ Golden Horn, he im­ a­ gined him­ self as ­ Eugène de Ras­ tig­ nac after old ­ Goriot’s bu­ rial, when he de­ clared war on Paris from the ­ heights of the ­ Père-Lachaise ce­ me­ tery with the cry, “Now it’s­ between you and me!” Many Bal­ kan in­ tel­ lec­ tu­ als could be found in their own Paris, some dif­ fer­ ent city, ut­ ter­ ing the same cry, yet still wish­ ing to cel­ e­ brate in the true Paris their vic­ tory over the Bal­ kans. Later, he would di­ rect a ­ nearly 136 iden­ ti­ cal cry, but for dif­ fer­ ent rea­ sons, ­ against Con­ stan­ tin­ o­ ple in ­ search of a way out to­ ward his Bal­ kans. Later, when he dis­ cov­ ered Mr. K., his life­ long ­ friend, Mr. K. re­ vealed that he had had this same il­ lu­ sion in Paris. This was yet an­ other rea­ son for them to join in life­ long friend­ ship . . . R What would hap­ pen in his Bal­ kans, or in his ­ nation’s part of the Bal­ kans (he knew quite well that not a sin­ gle eth­ nic group in the Bal­ kans lived on its ter­ ri­ tory alone; these lines were ­ changed by force of war, and then for ­ decades, for cen­ tu­ ries, each na­ tion ­ mourned its ­ cursed fate), what would hap­ pen in the Bal­ kans in the next fifty years, in the years of life that re­ mained to him, in the life of his na­ tion, in the life of his fam­ ily, that had first to re­ in­ force its ties with his ­ father’s line? In the glis­ ten­ ing ­ lights of Con­ stan­ tin­ o­ ple, at the ­ height of his youth, he ­ needed to turn to­ ward his Bal­ kans, re­ leased after five cen­ tu­ ries by this Ot­ to­ man realm just at the mo­ ment of its col­ lapse. Yes, he was here, in the very place, in the ruins of an em­ pire, to draw les­ sons about this time and fu­ ture time. He could not have im­ a­ gined that he would re­ ex­ per­ i­ ence the fall of this em­ pire ­ through the fall of two more em­ pires and that his life ul­ ti­ mately would be en­ closed in the cir­ cle of the Bal­ kan fam­ ily he had yet to ­ create. He had not yet ­ started his fam­ ily, but he ­ feared for his Bal­ kan fate. It was clear from the be­ gin­ ning that he would not re­ main in this city, where, were he to ­ change his name and ac­ cept a new cit­ i­ zen­ ship, he could­ create...