The Black Russian (28 page)

After a dramatic drumroll, Osman walked out onto Maxim’s dance floor. The impression he produced was extraordinary because of his costume—a colorful head wrap, short baggy pants, a yataghan thrust through the sash around the waist of his embroidered jacket—and the contrast between his enormous body and the tiny bağlama. This was the first time that a Turkish folk artist had ever appeared in a Pera nightclub. When Osman began to play a virtuoso
improvisation
called a “koşma,” the audience listened entranced, scarcely breathing. When he had finished, the silence at first was so complete that “one could’ve heard the humming of a mosquito,” as Adil
recalled
; then wild applause erupted. Osman replied with a calm and dignified bow, as if he had spent all his life performing for foreign dignitaries. Following a signal to the bandleader, who started up a Zeybek tune, Osman stretched out his arms and began the
high-stepping
dance, adding some remarkable moves that even Adil had never seen before. When it was over, the audience again exploded with applause. Admiral Bristol’s wife came up to Osman and invited him to their table. Showing worldliness that few expected from him, the old man offered his arm to the lady and escorted her back, to the delight of Maxim’s entire audience. When his hosts offered him champagne, he did not refuse it as a Muslim, but touched the glass to his lips and took two sips before putting it down. When offered a cigarette, he smoked it and, once he had finished, politely asked for permission to leave.

Elegant, pricey Maxim was at the upper end of popular tourist
entertainments
in Constantinople. But the city had many other levels, both native and foreign, and there was a lot to choose from if you had eclectic tastes or were not a prude. An American naval officer who went to a Russian restaurant where “the waitresses were all refugee Russian girls chosen obviously for their good looks” kept being urged, “You can be as wicked as you like” by the maître d’hôtel, a man “with a black beard who looked like Rasputin.” Vertinsky’s nightclub “La Rose Noire,” in which his singing was the prime official attraction, was reputedly shut down when a police raid “unearthed quantities of cocaine and 100 per cent syphilis among the lady servants and entertainers.” There were exotic “Oriental” entertainments that one could attend, like the “camel fights” between pairs of beasts that were held in the MacMahon Barracks Hippodrome in Taxim Square, not far from Maxim.

American tourists also treated as entertainments some Turkish cultural traditions and rituals of the Ottoman court that survived under the Allied occupation. The weekly ceremonial procession of the sultan to his mosque for worship attracted crowds of observers because of the magnificence of the scene: lined-up palace guards in bright scarlet; units of cavalrymen richly uniformed in red breeches, hussar jackets, and astrakhan hats, their lances tipped with red and green pennants; the sultans’ horses caparisoned with tiger skins and silver mountings. Especially popular with tourists were the dervishes, Sufi Muslim ascetics who resembled Western monks in some ways. Their religious practices, which varied by sect, included the famous dance-like “whirling,” as well as a form of collective prayer that
supercilious
foreigners called “howling.” There were also lurid forms of self-mortification, with individuals searing their bodies with red-hot irons, striking themselves with swords or spiked iron balls, and even thrusting daggers through both cheeks.

But probably the oddest entertainment in Constantinople was the “cockroach races” that the Russians invented. In an attempt to
control the spread of gambling in the city, in April 1921 the Allied authorities forbade the “lotto” games of chance that Russian refugees had introduced all over Pera. After casting about for some other source of income, several enterprising souls dreamed up the idea of staging races using the ubiquitous insects. They sought permission from the head of the British police, who, being a “true sportsman,” enthusiastically granted it. A large, well-lit hall was found and a giant table was set up in the center, its surface covered with a series of tracks separated by low barriers. Announcements of a new “Cafarodrome”—after the French “cafard,” “cockroach”—were posted throughout the district. The public poured in. Men with feverishly glistening eyes and women with flushed faces crowded around the table,
trans-fixed
by the sight of the enormous black cockroaches. Each had a name—“Michel,” “Dream,” “Trotsky,” “Farewell,” “Lyulyu.” A
ringing
bell signaled the start of the race. Released from their cigar-box “stables,” the cockroaches dashed forward, pulling tiny, two-wheeled sulkies fashioned out of wire; some, dumbfounded by the bright lights, froze, waving their feelers around uncertainly to the despair of their fans. Those that reached the end of their runs found stale cake crumbs as their reward. Pari-mutuel winnings could reach 100 Ltqs—the equivalent of several thousand dollars today. The success of the first Cafarodrome was so great that competing “racetracks” began to pop up all over Pera and Galata, with word spreading to Stambul and even Scutari. Some of the organizers quickly became rich and started to make plans to leave for a new life in Paris. If you had the money, you could buy a forged passport, and if your assets were portable and the Interallied Police did not know you, you could board a ship and escape.

In late summer of 1922, just when Maxim was emerging as the
pre-eminent
nightclub in Constantinople and Frederick was finally
beginning
to enjoy genuine financial success, the historical ground under his feet began to shift. Once again, his life and the life of the country he had adopted began to diverge, just as they had when he reached the pinnacle of his financial and social success in Russia on the eve of the October Revolution. The Turkish Nationalist movement had started to liberate the country from foreign invaders. And central to Mustafa Kemal’s aims was to put an end to the Allied occupation of Constantinople, which had created the artificial oasis where Maxim had thrived.

Following their victory at Sakarya, the Nationalists resumed their campaign against the invading Greek army in August 1922 and launched a major offensive in western Anatolia. The Greeks broke and fell back in disarray to Smyrna on the Aegean coast, where they had begun their invasion three years earlier, and which the Allies had promised Greece. On September 9, the Nationalists took Smyrna, thus completing their reconquest of Asian Turkey; several days later a vast fire, apparently started by the victorious Turks, burned much of the city, causing many deaths and much hardship among the Greek and Armenian populations. The only part of Turkey that remained
in foreign hands now was on the European side of the Straits in the north, which included Constantinople. Kemal’s forces continued their advance and two weeks later entered what the Allies considered a “neutral zone” near Chanak on the Asian side of the Dardanelles, precipitating a crisis that almost led to war with Great Britain. A diplomatic solution averted conflict at the last minute, but the
relations
between the occupying powers and a renascent Turkey had irrevocably changed.

In Constantinople, the news of the Nationalists’ advance, two hundred miles away, greatly alarmed the Americans. On September 23, Admiral Bristol circulated a memorandum explaining that the United States would remain neutral should fighting break out
between
Turkish and Allied forces, but would still evacuate all American citizens living in and near the city. A detailed list of all 650 Americans (including a young journalist named Ernest Hemingway) was
prepared
but, needless to say, Frederick and his family were not on it.

The Nationalists now had the upper hand and nothing stood in the way of their goal to reclaim the rest of their country. On October 11, 1922, Britain, France, and Italy accepted Kemal’s demands and signed the Armistice of Mudanya. They also agreed to a new peace conference to renegotiate the onerous Treaty of Sèvres, which had provided for the partition of the Ottoman Empire and the
internationalization
of Constantinople.

Kemal next shifted his attention to his internal enemy—the sultan. Mehmet VI, a bespectacled, studious-looking man who
inherited
the throne from his brother, had opposed the Nationalists from the start and blamed them for the disaster that had befallen the Ottoman Empire after the war. For a time, his government in Constantinople, whose powers had already been severely limited by the Allies, continued to function independently from the
Nationalist
government that had formed in Angora. The Nationalists also initially attempted to remain loyal to the sultan personally, but the final rupture between them became inevitable. On November 1, 1922,
Kemal and the Nationalists proclaimed the abolition of the sultanate. Two weeks later, Mehmet VI slipped out of the Dolmabahçe Palace, boarded a British warship, and fled to Malta and permanent exile on the Italian Riviera.

When the Lausanne peace treaty was signed on Tuesday, July 24, 1923, the news was as bad as the foreigners in Constantinople had feared. The Allies had been forced to give up all of their
imperialistic
plans for Turkey itself and would soon be evacuating the city. Frederick had been waiting for the news and understood its gravity. The very next day, Wednesday, July 25, he hurried to the American consulate general and, in effect, threw himself on the diplomats’ mercy. Despite the rejection he had received earlier, getting American recognition was now the only hope he had left.

It is surprising that this time the American diplomats were more receptive to Frederick’s appeal and agreed to try to help him. Why? As their later comments and actions suggest, their collective
conscience
was not entirely clear because of the role they had played in the State Department’s rejection. They were also not indifferent to the pleasures that could be had at Maxim, which a number of them patronized. And they now began to sympathize with Frederick on a purely human level—with his hard-won success, his unusual
vulnerability
because of the drastic change in Turkey’s political situation, and the urgency of his plight.

Immediately upon signing the Lausanne treaty, the Turkish authorities announced that all foreigners in Constantinople would have to register with the police by August 1. To comply, Frederick would need official identification as a foreign national; without it, he could be subject to deportation and the loss of his property.
Because
this deadline was only a week away, Ravndal agreed to expedite Frederick’s appeal and to send a telegram to Washington, albeit at Frederick’s expense and provided he brought the money in advance.

Ravndal telegraphed the State Department on Thursday, July 26, asking that Frederick’s case “be reopened.” As justification, he explained
that creditors’ claims against Frederick “have been practically all disposed of,” and that Frederick promised to pay income tax for the past several years, if “he is recognized.” Showing more than a perfunctory interest in helping Frederick, Ravndal even searched for a precedent in a vast diplomatic compendium that dealt with such matters (Moore’s
Digest
) and invoked a case from 1880 that he thought was similar.

But Ravndal was also bound by State Department policies
regarding
repatriation, and the conditions he specified under which Frederick could be granted an “emergency certificate of registration” were heartless. The certificate would include Frederick’s children but not his “wife” (the skeptical quotation marks were Ravndal’s), and Frederick would have until May 1924 to return to the United States and place his children in school. In other words, Frederick’s price for American protection would be to give up Elvira; to dispose of Maxim; to accept a permanent, inferior status as a black man in the United States; and to doom his sons to the same fate. Nevertheless, Frederick went along, although it is possible that he had other ideas about what he might do if he got his hands on a passport that would allow him to travel, or at least to escape from Constantinople. (As he surely knew by now from newspapers as well as from traveling entertainers who worked for him, Paris had become a haven for many black American musicians and entrepreneurs.) The day after Ravndal sent the telegram, Frederick signed a typed note, certifying that he was “always ready to fulfill all the obligations that an American citizen is bound to,” and that he was “quite willing to pay my income tax for these past three years, amounting to about a thousand Dollars [equivalent to $40,000 today]; this, as soon as my new citizenship papers will be delivered to me.”

The response from Washington arrived in less than a week and was as disheartening as it was brief: “You are informed that the Department is unable to reverse its decision as indicated in its mail instruction of 20 January, 1922. Collect $2.70.”

But Frederick was still not prepared to give up. He had one very influential acquaintance left in the city—Admiral Mark Bristol. A stern-looking man with a firm gaze that fitted his high rank and position, Bristol was also very kind and, together with his wife, did much valuable charitable work in Constantinople, including helping Russian refugees and founding an American hospital. Bristol took a personal interest in Frederick’s plight and asked Larry Rue, the
correspondent
of the
Chicago Daily Tribune
who also knew Frederick, to investigate. Rue canvassed other Americans in the city as well as Frederick’s employees and wrote a strong letter to Bristol on August 24, 1923. He affirmed that Frederick was “obviously an American”; that after his initial stumbles he had achieved “enviable” success in his business; that he was widely admired for being a humane employer; and that the State Department had discriminated against Frederick when it denied him a passport on the basis of a “rule which is freely waived for others whose intentions, citizenship, business methods and Americanism are considerably more in doubt than his.” Rue also reported that neither Allen nor Ravndal had objections to Frederick any longer, and that they would both “really like to help him out of this dilemma.” Rue concluded that if the State Department did nothing to protect Frederick from the risk of having his property confiscated by the Turks, “There ain’t no justice.”

There are several inaccuracies in Rue’s letter, which are
presumably
due to the efforts by all concerned to put the best possible face on their dealings with Frederick. Allen’s claim that he would like to help Frederick is difficult to reconcile with his central role in sabotaging Frederick’s earlier passport applications, although it is possible that Allen’s attitude had evolved during the ensuing two years. Rue’s report that Ravndal did not have any objections to Frederick was belied by the way Ravndal referred to Elvira in his telegram to Washington on July 26. Despite all these reservations, it is still remarkable that so many of the influential white Americans in the city would have rallied around Frederick in this way.

Bristol did not forget Frederick’s case. In late December 1923, he asked Edgar Turlington, a solicitor in the State Department and his official legal adviser, to “have an extended conversation” with Frederick about his past in order to try to gather information that might persuade the State Department to reverse its decision. The
resulting
six-page autobiographical narrative that Turlington produced traces Frederick’s life from his birth to his arrival in Constantinople and contains many details that are still readily verifiable. He also gives the names of several people who could vouch for Frederick’s American origins. Turlington incorporated this narrative into a letter he addressed on February 8, 1924, to George L. Brist of the Division of Passport Control at the State Department. Turlington also added that although he himself was in no position to verify independently much of what Frederick said,

However, once again all the efforts came to nothing. Brist did ask a colleague to check the Passport Division’s records, but the clerks again failed to find or, if they found them, to produce any of Frederick’s applications. Even more egregious is that Turlington gave Brist the name of a naval officer who was living in Washington at the time, who had been to Maxim, and who knew the Cheairs family—the onetime owners of Frederick’s parents. But Brist and his colleagues either did not pursue this easy lead, were not persuaded by it, or chose to let it get lost in the great State Department paper shuffle. In the end, it proved impossible for Bristol, Rue, or anyone
else to undo the damage that had been done to Frederick’s case earlier by the diplomats in Constantinople and the officials in Washington.

In the meantime, things in Constantinople were not going as badly as had been feared. The August 1 deadline had come and gone, but Frederick had not been deported and Maxim had not been seized. Because Turkey was an overwhelmingly Muslim country, there was much talk initially about prohibition, which would have been ruinous for Maxim and other establishments like it. In October 1923, for
example
, dire rumors had spread that all drinking establishments would be closed, and stores of liquor would be dramatically thrown into the sea. But although some closings did follow, pressure to reverse this policy began immediately. Many Turks were now accustomed to Western-style nightlife and wanted it to continue. Soon, a few private clubs were authorized to provide drinks to members. Maxim, which had become an important part of the city’s increasingly secularized popular culture, was prominent among them. By the spring of 1924, clubs, gardens, hotels, restaurants, and casinos were allowed to serve liquor, provided they had government permits (the Gazi, Mustafa Kemal, himself was reputedly a tippler).

Following the Treaty of Lausanne, the changes in the country’s government and in Constantinople’s administration were rapid,
dramatic
, and epochal in historical terms. But initially at least they did not affect Frederick’s life and affairs in any very striking ways. The Allied forces began the evacuation of the city on August 29, 1923, only five days after the treaty was signed. It was completed on Tuesday, October 2, at 11:30 in the morning, when the British, French, and Italian commanding generals and their remaining troops carried out a brief but impressive ceremony in the open square by the
Dolmabahçe
Palace. With Allied and Turkish units drawn up on the sides of the square, and under the eyes of dignitaries including foreign
ambassadors and the high commissioners, the generals inspected the troops; then the Allied and Turkish colors were presented, and the Allied forces marched off. “In a twinkling of an eye,” a great,
jubilant
Turkish throng flooded the square, according to an American who was present. The Allied fleets left the same afternoon and, in contrast to their imperious arrival five years earlier, now seemed to be “slinking out of port.” “Had these vessels had tails,” the American commented, “I can imagine that they would surely have been securely curled behind their hind legs.” Three days later, on October 5, the Nationalist army reached the Asian side of Constantinople; the following day it crossed the Bosporus and landed in Stambul near Topkapi Palace. On
October
13, the capital was officially moved to Angora. The final step in the country’s transformation came on October 29, 1923, with the proclamation of the Turkish Republic and Mustafa Kemal’s election as its first president. In 1935 the grateful nation that he created would give him the honorary name Atatürk, “Father of the Turks.”