“Teacher, what are you going to do?”
“What am I going to do? I am going to open Sadan’s coffin to convince you!”
At that moment he pushed on the end of the bar, which he had carefully wedged under the sarcophagus, and used it as a lever to slide the lid over to the thick plank of wood he had placed before. Sadan’s mahogany coffin was exposed. Seized with great heartache and fear, I wanted to stop the doctor. However, he persisted. After a minute, the lid of the coffin was open too. Holding the candle inside the coffin, the professor grasped me with his strong hands. I looked inside… but the coffin was completely empty!
You can imagine the effect this had on me. However, the doctor did not appear surprised. I felt inclined to challenge him in spite of the suspicious facts laid before me. I said:
“Yes, Resuhî Bey; I am satisfied that Sadan Hanim’s body is not in this coffin. But what does that prove or tell us? This only proves that her body is not here!”
“Indeed, that is sound logic, but it is flimsy! Tell me, why is the body—Sadan Hanim’s body—not here?”
“I do not know. Perhaps someone stole it; perhaps they sold it to an anatomical business!”
I also felt the weakness of my conjecture. But there could not be another plausible explanation. In reply, professor Resuhî Bey sighed.
“If only what you said were true,” he said. “However, the reality is otherwise; let us go, onto other evidence!”
With my assistance he replaced the lids of the coffin and sarcophagus. He blew out the candle in his hand. We opened the door of the mausoleum and went outside. The professor locked the door, put the keys in his pocket, and then at his request we waited on either side of the cemetery.
I was able to see the tree the professor was hiding behind from the cypress tree where I was concealed. This was simultaneously a monotonous and sober vigil. We had been in worse situations during the Struggle for Independence. But I could not recall a moment that oppressed my soul so much as this one. The hours elapsed; midnight had passed long ago. My body was numb; my nerves were at first excessively tense but eventually calmed completely. I was beginning to feel angry at my tutor and guilty for being so foolish. I do not know how many centuries passed in that state. On a whim, I turned around; I thought I saw a slim, white ghost moving near the trunks of the dark cypress trees. At the same time, a black shadow appeared behind the tree where Resuhî Bey was hiding and advanced upon that white phantom. This was evidently the doctor. However, I had to run around some of the headstones to get there myself. I stumbled over graves without tombstones or rocks. As I moved in that direction, following Resuhî Bey’s earlier instructions, somewhere far off a rooster crowed. And again I saw a fast-moving white specter; something like a shrouded corpse passed me, almost flying toward Sadan’s family grave. But since trees obstructed my view of the mausoleum, I could not quite see where this white figure entered. When Professor Resuhî Bey saw me, he held out before me the body of a small child and said in a somber voice:
“Do you believe it now?”
With an anger and obstinacy that I could not suppress at that moment, I said, “No!”
Resuhî Bey asked, a little impatiently, “Is this not a child?”
I replied in the same harsh tone. “Yes, this is a child… But where did he come from? And let us see if he has any wounds.” The professor appeared to be running out of patience. He struck a match; there was nothing resembling a wound on the child’s neck. When I said, triumphantly, “I was right, was I not?” the doctor merely replied, “Thank God we arrived in time!”
We left the child near the Eyüp police station. As we quickly withdrew, we heard the police guard say, “Hey, what is that?”
I write these lines at home. My head aches. I do not know what to say. But I shall try to sleep because Doctor Resuhî insists that we must do this thing again.
27 September.—I met Doctor Resuhî Bey in Eyüp an hour before sunset. The doctor is a very stubborn man; although I have told him repeatedly how illegal and morally reprehensible what we have done is, he still compelled me to return to that same family mausoleum, in broad daylight no less, in indifference to my words. I thought it useless. Sadan’s body was not in the grave nor in the coffin. So what good was it to put ourselves in danger again?
We entered the cemetery just before sunset. There is no need to prolong this account any further; this time, when I opened the coffin with the doctor, chills rushed through me. Sadan’s body lay in the coffin as lovely and vital as the day before her death! In fact, she was even more attractive and beautiful than I saw her before. I almost could not believe that she was dead. Her lips were fiery red. On her cheeks fluttered the pink of fresh roses. As I turned to the professor in fear and amazement, he said: “Are you convinced now?” and in a motion that sent cold shivers down my spine, he pulled back her lips and showed me her teeth.
“You see, the teeth are even sharper!” Then he touched the canine tooth and the one below it and said: “And with these, you bite little children and drain their blood! My friend Afif, do you believe it now?”
The feeling of disbelief and resistance to something that was against all the scientific evidence and understan
ding of the last century resurfaced in my mind.
“What if,” I said, “someone came here at night and placed the body here?” The doctor laughed mirthlessly.
“Who would do such a thing, and why? And consider the fact that it has been a week since Sadan’s death. How could she remain as fresh as a daisy?”
I had no answer for this. But the professor did not notice my silence; he was opening her eyelids and examining her teeth as though he were working on a cadaver in the morgue. A moment later he turned back to me and, with that same decisive and nonchalant manner he adopted when he lectured me years ago, said:
“I have considered every scientific possibility. I have studied and compared every known history, social event, belief, and legend. I have an ongoing interest in the historical and contemporary beliefs common among different nations. Thus, I consider myself knowledgeable on the subject. Now listen, we have in front of us a dual life—or to be precise, two different lives. Sadan was bitten by a thing the Rumelians called a “Vampire”—it is interesting that it means the same thing in both West and East—and called a ‘Cadi’[9] or ‘Hortlak’[10] in our language. What is it, Afif? Do not be impatient. Yes, you do not know the painful thing yet. But you shall learn soon enough. Although they become a vampire when they are bitten by a vampire, while in this trance-like state they do not receive all of the accursed attributes of that monster. For them, (I do not know if the doctor was drifting here into his famous Sufism beliefs again?) there is a chance of reaching God’s presence or, at least, to become the harmless dead and find eternal peace. For this reason I now must kill Sadan one more time; for the peace of humanity and to set Sadan’s soul free once and for all!”
My hands were shaking; I was motionless and uncertain. The doctor sensed this and asked: “Do you believe now?” I put my hands against my temples, and as I pressed on them as though I were trying to crush my head, I said:
“My tutor, my tutor! Do not press me! Perhaps, perhaps I will believe it; I am afraid I do… but how will you do what you have said?”
The doctor assumed his scholarly air:
“Afif, my son, you are a true Istanbulite. If you were a Rumelian or had dealt with the stories (folklore) of Trabzon and its surrounding areas, or even had spoken with people who came from the Rumeli and Skopje regions regarding these subjects, you would know the words ‘cadi’ and ‘hortlak.’ Or, at least, you would have some information regarding ‘humanity’s primitive history.’ And you would understand that there were societies known as ‘cadici’—note that the word ‘cadi’ is used incorrectly in this context—and ‘hortlakçi’ to fight against what had been generally been referred to by Rumelians as vampires.