“Afif, my son, there is one thing I find strange: my father. He is from Of, a ‘wise man from Of,’ or a wise ‘hodja’[11] as it meant ten years ago; my mother is a genuine Istanbulite. As their son, I am a true Turk! My father was a marine major in Istanbul. From time to time our relatives would come to Istanbul from our hometown, my father’s village. During those nights, in the large room of our home in Kasimpasa, I listened to their witch stories. These stories that my cousins told had witches knocking at the windows during raging storms, and everyone would tremble with fear. But do not think that I believed in them, for this was around the 1890s and there were young people who loved science and physics. These people were sent to Tripoli en masse, and I was one of them. However, my knowledge of my country’s history and my deep interest in all of humanity, in all of the higher sciences related to medicine, and in strange, unexplained phenomena led me into a particular research adventure. The fact that this belief exists with the same intensity and form in the eastern cities of Turkey, Caucasia, and particularly the Slavic regions suggests either some ethnographic conclusion or something even more significant. For in all of those countries, the same solution that I know to be correct was used against vampires and ghouls. Let me get to the point: I am a modern doctor now and I shall use this same solution. I will sever Sadan’s head from her body! I will fill her mouth with garlic flowers, drive a stake through her heart, and bury the body.”
These words were said about the woman I loved, the delicate and fair body of the woman for whom I turned my whole life into a desert. My soul revolted against this thought. Doctor Resuhî Bey continued speaking as though he had forgotten all this:
“Afif, my son, believing blindly in science is disrespectful to science itself. Science has not been fully explored. There are many things we do not yet know, but which we can see with our own eyes and discuss afterward. Now let us leave here at once.”
We put everything back as it was, and the doctor and I sealed the grave carefully. Some time later we were on the road to the Eyüp pier. I was confused, exhausted, and did not know what to think or say. The doctor stopped suddenly and said:
“Afif, I will not be returning with you. I must stay here with my bag. I shall return to the grave and take care of a few things before sunset. Oh, do not panic. I will not do what I have spoken of. I will do that in front of not only you, but also Turan Bey and Özdemir Bey, to show all of you the terrible truth. I am a man of faith, a religious man, Afif; like many people, I believe that those who have been bitten by vampires and turned into vampires or ghouls themselves will suffer eternally in desperation and tumult, and may bring about an endless catastrophe for both themselves and humanity. However, as I have said before, if the necessary action is taken against ghouls, these unfortunate but incredible things become ordinary corpses. And their souls will earn the eternal rest they deserve. I knew, Afif, that you are a little open-minded and very progressive, and that my words would make you angry; and they did. Unfortunately, they are the truth. And I will prove this to all three of you. What I shall do tonight is nothing but a special experiment, the taking of some measures to stop Sadan—not the angel, but the ‘thing’ that has had its blood drained and become a vampire—from leaving her coffin.”
29 September, morning.—This morning in my room we held a very serious, thrilling, and painful council of war with Doctor Resuhî Bey, Turan, Özdemir, and myself. Doctor Resuhî Bey proceeded to discuss the situation. I forgot my own grief and excitement and began to worry about Turan’s condition and his wrath; I was almost trembling. Turan leapt from his seat a few times as though he wished to silence the doctor by strangling him. Özdemir and I also rose. However, the doctor was so sorrowfully, painfully, and terribly convincing that Turan sat down in surprise every time—sometimes patiently, sometimes with defeated rage. Finally Özdemir Bey rose, his face completely white, and said to Turan: “I myself have no doubts about the doctor’s words. I am moved by the respect and astonishment I feel toward this kind-hearted scholar.” Then he shook the professor’s large, brown hands. Finally, Turan also admitted defeat. He put his head between his hands. “Very well, Doctor,” he said, “let us go and see, for I am about to go mad!”
CHAPTER XI
FROM DOCTOR AFIF BEY’S DIARY—continued.
At fifteen minutes before midnight, the four of us, led by Doctor Resuhî Bey, leapt over the low, dilapidated wall of the Eyüp cemetery. The sky was cloudy and the night was very dark. But the moon occasionally produced areas of illumination as it moved through scattered clouds, only to disappear again. We stood in front of the mausoleum door; the doctor opened it and looked back. When he saw all three of us hesitating to enter for various reasons, he entered the darkness alone and pulled us in. The three of us looked at each other as we walked, and my attention was on Turan. The doctor shut the door, lit a lantern, turned it toward the sarcophagus, and said:
“Afif, we were here yesterday morning. Tell our friends: was Sadan Hanim’s body in the coffin?”
“Yes,” I said.
“So look at it now!”
Doctor Resuhî opened the lid of the sarcophagus with the help of a lever and the herculean strength of Özdemir, then opened the coffin lid. Not with triumph but with grief, he said to Turan:
?
?Look!”
Turan took hesitant steps. Then, by the light of the lantern I held at a distance, he looked into the coffin. His face became deathly pale. The coffin in front of him was completely empty!
Among the frozen friends, it was the doctor who broke the silence: “Now, out!” We all exited the gloomy mausoleum into the dark cemetery. The clouds were still chasing each other in the sky and the moonlight penetrated from time to time. The professor was busy closing the door of the mausoleum, and he began to employ himself in a strange way. He took from his bag some items that looked like long sheets of paper, and he glued these to the keyhole, doorway, and any gaps in between with the help of something—probably a glue bottle. The sanest man among us, Özdemir Bey, asked: “What are you doing, Doctor?”
The professor replied soberly: “I am preventing the re-entry of the vampire to this mausoleum. During the day I wrote verses from the Quran on these pages!” This surprise left all of us speechless. Had Doctor Resuhî Bey truly gone mad? Turan raised his hands in anger, but Özdemir held them back and calmed him. When this was over, we waited in the shadows of the trees that the doctor had appointed for us. I do not know how long we waited. But finally we heard the doctor’s whisper, deep but sharp as a whistle: “Look!” We all looked where he pointed. Yes, there, between the dark cypress trees and the start of the road now illuminated by moonlight stood a delicate, white shape, like a ghost. We could not see its face, for it was bent down over what appeared to be a very small child. But we could see the profile of a young, dark-haired woman with a white shroud torn at the top. A moment passed, and then we heard a shriek. It resembled the sound of a child having a nightmare. We all started forward. But the professor stopped us with a sharp gesture. At that moment the shrouded figure moved toward us. I felt the blood freeze in my veins. Simultaneously I heard Turan to my left utter a cry as though his lungs were about to collapse. The phantom in front of us was Sadan!
But Sadan’s ghost was completely different. That purity and beauty had given way to cruelty; and the familiar shyness on her face was replaced with a frightening lust.
At a sign from the doctor we quickly left our places and formed a line before the door of the mausoleum. Doctor Resuhî Bey raised the lantern and drew the slide without hesitation. When the light fell on Sadan’s face, we saw that her lips were crimson with fresh blood and that the stream had trickled down over her neck and stained her shroud!
We all felt a shudder of fear and disgust pass through us, as cold as death itself.
I could see by the tremulous light that even Professor Resuhî’s nerves of steel were failing. Turan was next to me, and if I had not held him up he would have fallen.
When she saw us, Sadan drew back and snarled like a dog. Then she glared at us. Her eyes, once kind and deep blue, shining like a morning star, now burned with the fires of hell. A sinister glow wreathed her face. With a careless motion she callously flung to the ground the child who up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. As the child moaned piteously, unable to move, Turan uttered another pained cry. With open arms and a wanton, hellish smile, Sadan advanced toward Turan invitingly. I saw the poor young man back away, covering his face with his hands.
However, Sadan continued to advance with an enchanting and weird grace, and spoke with indescribable seductiveness:
“Come to me; come, Turan! My arms are waiting for you; my lips are longing for you; leave them and come to me! Come, my love, come!”
Ah, what kind of magic, what kind of hellish, devilish deception was in that invitation! Turan moved his hands from his eyes as though under a spell. He slowly opened his arms. He advanced toward this sinister, bloody creature from which only a moment before he had recoiled in fear and disgust. Sadan made a quick, joyful move to meet those open arms. But at that moment I saw Resuhî Bey dart out and hold an open book to her face; it was a Quran. The vampire turned away with a hideous growl. Her face was distorted with anger and hatred; she passed by the professor and moved furiously ahead toward the mausoleum.
But we saw this horrible ghoul, this vampire, stop suddenly a few steps from the door as though arrested by an invisible force. A moment later she turned back, and the moonlight clearly illuminated her face. Never could I have imagined such a grotesque, unutterable look of lust, fury, and loathing. Could such a thing exist even if Azrael and Death itself had wished it?
Resuhî Bey hurried toward the door and removed one of the pages that sealed the gap between the door and its hinges. Before we even understood what was happening, we saw Sadan’s physical body turn almost into water—no, vapor—and slip through that knife-edge crack!
Then the professor turned to Turan: “Now, Turan Bey,” he said, “will you allow me to do as I wish?”
Turan fell on his knees, covered his face with his hands, and cried: